In doing some research for this fanfiction piece, I found a scientific article discussing how a diagnosis of homicidal mania has affected legality over the years.
Eigen, Joel Peter. "Diagnosing Homicidal Mania: Forensic Psychiatry and the Purposeless Murder."
Medical history 54.4 (2010): 433-56. ProQuest Research Library. Web. 7 Mar. 2012.
The working definition we have now for homicidal mania is, "the propensity to kill related to an actual
delusion, an absurd motive to kill related to no known motive, or an impulse to kill that was
"sudden, instantaneous, unreflective, and uncontrollable".21"
I think this perfectly describes Hamlet, as his mania is directly related to a delusion, with an absurd motive to kill. I also mentioned in my paper how Hamlet was "unreflective" towards his actions, in the same way that some of the people described in this article show a lack of remorse. I think Hamlet really is suffering from Homicidal Mania, and I'm also playing with the idea of sociopathy.
I wonder if any scholars have tried to diagnose Hamlet's psychological condition....
So this has sort of morphed with another one of my assignments from my creative writing class. For that class, I need to write a 15 page character development in response to these questions.
so here it is!
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